Building the Foundation - Psalm 1

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
Not so the wicked!  They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. 
Psalm 1

Last week many of you wrote down what God was impressing on your hearts as where we as a church and as individuals need to go - where our Nineveh and Samaria might be, who our Levi might be.  I am still praying over the cards, but two things stick out to me.  One is that many of us have personal friends and family members who need Jesus. The second-most frequent response was the individual family members who you are reaching out to.  But first and foremost was the need to reach out locally, the understanding that our first mission field is the one right around us. 

I'm reminded of the sign above the door of the church I grew up in: You are now entering the mission field.

To adequately reach out to our mission field, we have to first build the foundation.  When we moved in to the parsonage, the back half of the kitchen was in bad shape.  It slanted down pretty sharply.  The windows were extremely drafty because they were off level by over an inch from front to back.  A lot of you did a lot of work tearing the back off the house and rebuilding it, and pretty quickly it became pretty obvious what the problem was.  The whole back section of the house - dining area as well as the sunroom above it - was sitting on small underground concrete piles, but those piles had settled, and over the years, they had basically fallen over underground.  So before they rebuilt the dining area and our upstairs bathroom and laundry room, they first dug and laid a foundation.

Our foundation is God's blessing.  It cannot be anything else.  Time and again, when God's people try to do things our own way, we find that it fails.  Adam and Eve decide that they can indeed eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and they usher sin into a previously sinless world.  They are banished from the Garden of Eden, become mortal, and eventually die.  The people of Babel decide they can build a tower to heaven and can usurp God, and he confuses their language. Samson decided he wanted a wife and didn't consult God in his choice, and he ended up with a woman who betrayed him to his enemies. King Saul offers the burnt offering instead of waiting for the priest to do so, and he loses God's blessing.  Our job is to wait for God's blessing to move ahead, not to do it on our own.  And the Psalmist tells us "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers." (Psalm 1:1)

The first thing to remember when you're considering God's blessing is that God's blessing does not come from the wrong type of friends.  I'm not telling you to neglect or turn your back on your friends who don't know Jesus, because they need to have godly influences in their lives as well. I am telling you to beware.  We all have various levels of relationships with others.  Think of it as several concentric circles. 

The first group of people is outside the circles. These are people you don't have any real relationship or connection with (or perhaps people you intentionally avoid).  (every once in a while I get a Facebook friend request from one of these – maybe some of them are your friends or they’re just all about having a thousand friends; I’m not sure why they would add me).  There are all sorts of people you run into, even daily, who you don’t really know.  They are outside your relational circle.

When you get into the people with whom you have a relationship, the outer layer might be "good acquaintances" - people you don't hang out with much, and when you do, you can always have a nice easy small-talk conversation with them, but not much else.   They might be your co-workers or neighbors (depending on where you live) or some people from church – you know them and you don’t dislike them, but you’re not close to them by any means.

The next circle inside might be "friends" who you really like to hang out with and do things with.  When you throw a party, you’ll probably invite these friends, and you really enjoy their company.  You probably have something significant in common; maybe you are big fans of the same sports team or you have the same hobby.  Though these are your friends, they’re not your very closest friends.

Only your very closest, most intimate friends are in your “inner circle”. These are the ones you can share everything with. You probably don't have very many in this circle, maybe even only one or two.  They are the ones whose advice you always take.  They’re the ones who can tell you the truth, even when you don’t want to hear it.  They’re the ones you immediately call when something good happens… or when something bad happens. You can tell them anything and you know they will accept and love you.  This is the kind of person you will vacation with… more than once, and on purpose.

It is a good thing to realize the different levels a friend might be on, and it is uncomfortable when someone puts themselves on the wrong level with you.  The person who wants a deeper relationship even when you don’t want one, or the person who you used to be best friends with but lately you’ve grown apart. 

But other times you meet someone for the first time and you almost immediately let them in, for good or bad.  Realize that when Jesus walked the earth, he had these levels, too.  There were plenty who were just faces in the crowd.  Some of them cheered on Palm Sunday and jeered on Good Friday.  5000 ate the food he provided, but when he taught hard teachings, many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. (John 6:66).

He spoke to the crowds and accepted invitations to Levi and Zacchaeus' parties and he had many disciples and followers.  These were the outer levels. 

Then in the next level were his twelve disciples.  He poured his life into them and spent lots of time with them.  This level would probably also include Mary and Martha and Lazarus as well as Mary Magdalene and some others.

But in his inner circle were Peter, James, and John.  They were his best friends. They were the ones he brought with him to the mountain where he was transfigured.  They were the ones he invited to continue on with him in the Garden before he was arrested.  They were his inner circle.

Why do I tell you this?  Because the Psalmist makes it clear that who you hang out with, who you let into your inner circles, this has a lot to do with the blessing God gives you.  "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers." (Psalm 1:1).  This is a strong reminder to watch out what happens with our friends.  I said earlier that sometimes we meet someone and immediately let them in - but that's not how things usually go.  They usually progress like the Psalm.  First you walk by (walk in the counsel of the wicked) and hear something.  Then you stand around and listen.  Finally, you sit down to listen. You don't just one day decide that you're going to fall in with people whose ideas and practices are blatantly anti-Christian, but it happens gradually.  This is why it's important to evaluate carefully who is in your inner circle.  If you are a parent, you'll understand this from that standpoint.  You want to know who your children's friends are.  Not to judge them or keep them away from their friends, but to keep them in God's blessing.

But just keeping good company isn't everything.  The Psalmist goes on to say that instead of keeping bad company, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:2)

While keeping good company is important, more important is the status given to God's law. This was so important in some Jewish communities that they would have their leaders taking turns 24/7 studying the Word.  I wonder this: how central is God's Word in our lives? Many Christians don't even read the Word, let alone delight in it.  How about you - do you delight in God's Word?  Last Spring some of us made an attempt to read the entire Bible over 40 days.  That was the closest I've come to truly embodying Psalm 1:2, delighting in the Word, meditating day and night on it. 

If we are to take God's good news to our community, this is our foundation: delighting in God's Word and meditating on it all the time.  Otherwise we're not allowing God to speak clearly to us, let alone to others through us.  This is the foundation for everything.  

In Matthew 7, Jesus tells his followers that everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” Matthew 7:24-27.

Did you notice that the external circumstances didn't change between the wise man and the foolish man?  Both experienced the rain, rising streams, and the winds.  But hearing Jesus' words and putting them into action was the difference.  The Psalmist puts it this way: He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.  (Psalm 1:3)

This is beautiful imagery of a tree planted by the water.  Jeremiah 17:7-8 puts it this way: But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in the year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

These deep roots allow the tree to not merely survive, but to produce fruit!  Often we're running on empty, going from crisis to crisis, and we rely on those mountaintop experiences to sustain us in the valley.  It doesn't work.  Only the deep streams of Living Water, supplied by the Holy Spirit, can sustain us to the point of allowing us not just survival, but fruit.  The fruit we're talking about is the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

But those who do not delight in the Word of the Lord, who do not meditate on His word they have no foundation. The Bible refers to them as wicked.  Listen to these strong words: Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. (Psalm 1:4)  Do you know anyone who just seems to be blown this way and that?  They are constantly trying whatever the newest fad is, doing what feels good for the moment.  They are worried about what’s going to happen, about “worst case scenarios.” They build their house on the foundation of culture or emotion.  And because these are so shaky, the whole thing falls.  This is why the Psalmist ends this Psalm this way: Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. (Psalm 1:5) There is no foundation for the wicked to stand on.  And you can’t reach out effectively with Christ’s love with no foundation.  It’s kind of like when you’re in an airplane and the flight attendant tells you “in case of loss of cabin pressure, put on your oxygen mask before helping others put theirs on.” If you don’t have any air to breathe, how are you supposed to help someone else?  Our foundation is God’s blessing, and He gives His blessing richly, but if we ignore His Word, we aren’t welcome in the assembly of the righteous, those in right relationship with God.  Jesus was clear that those accepted in God’s family are those who hear His word and obey it.

And if we aren’t in right relationship with God, how can we expect to share it with others?  Now I know that as humans, we are extremely resourceful, and we can “fake it” for quite a while, but we can’t fake it into heaven, and we can’t fake anyone else there either. 

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. (Psalm 1:6). This is a great reminder as we prepare to reach out to the community, the reminder that if you have built your foundation on the rock, if you’ve delighted in the Lord and meditated on His Word, you can be assured that the Lord is watching your way, the way He has planned for you to go.  There is only one way of the righteous, and that way is Jesus Christ, who proclaimed himself the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6)  Any other way is the way to hell.

So as we prepare to enter our mission field, remember that our first step must be to prepare ourselves by delighting in God’s Word and meditating on it day and night.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Christmas Eve: Jesus is Hope, Love, Joy, Peace

Life Together: Live in Harmony with One Another

The Lord's Signet Ring